This calendar of saints is drawn from several denominations, sects, and traditions. Although it will no longer be updated daily, the index on the right will guide visitors to a saint celebrated on any day they choose. Additional saints will be added as they present themselves to Major.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

January 3 -- St. Genevieve

Remember how that trollope Guinevere whined to St. Genevieve through about five minutes of Camelot? Well, it turns out that Genevieve, the Patron of Paris, is more Joan of Arc than Guinevere, though luckily she lived to a ripe old age of 83 and died peacefully. Oh, and she inadvertently got Orleans sacked rather than saving it. But other than that she was kind of like Jeanne d'Arc.

At a very young age, Genevieve was perceived by Germanus of Auxerre to be selected for an especially holy life. He talked to her briefly, and then spoke to her parents. At fifteen, she elected to take the veil (i.e. become a nun). She had moved to Paris by the time the Franks under Childeric laid siege to the city. She led an armed sortie (Joan-like, I'd say) to get supplies for the starving Parisians; they returned on grain-laden barges down the Seine. Very heroic.

Later, as Attila the Hun was rampaging through France, Parisians panicked and prepared to abandon the city. Genevieve told them that if they prayed fervently, the city would be safe. They stayed, they prayed, and the Huns turned away. Of course they sacked Orleans instead, but that wasn't her fault.

Clovis, the King of the Franks, was persuaded to become Christian (Genevieve may deserve some credit for this) and at her request, began the construction of the church of Saints Peter and Paul, which was later rededicated the Church of St. Genevieve. Those atheist bastards(and I say bastards with literal intent, for they were denying their ancestry by trying to make all anew) in the French Revolution destroyed the shrine of St. Genevieve and renamed her church Le Pantheon, intended as a memorial for the heroes of their cannibalistic revolution. Sometime after they stopped murdering her in the street, frescoes depicting her life were painted on the walls of the Pantheon.